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CHAPTER 1

Tourists strea-cake contours of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, and I pressed , out of their way “Are we sure this is where he said to meet him?”

“First landing on the stairs to the west of the carousel,” Jack said “That’s here”

Jolly accordion music started up nearby, like ere in an old-timey Charlie Chaplin movie

“He’s late,” I said

“You can’t expect criular hours” Jack boosted hi, and I paced in front of hiiven our photos to a week ago All I found was the regular Montmartre Sunday-afternoon crowds

The accordion in the courtyard down the street stopped, and there was a s of applause At any ti instru portraits of tourists This neighborhood had been a haven for authors and artists since groups of expats claiway, Picasso, F Scott Fitzgerald

And now us

It had been teeks since Jack and I had escaped the wedding where I was supposed to marry Luc Dauphin, after which the Order kidnapped my mother and killed reat day

Teeks since the chase across Europe that left us with this bracelet I kept onI held up linted dully in the wared to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it was part of a string of clues he’d left that led to the tomb of Alexander the Great

The toedly inside it—which the Order would do anything to keep the Circle fro chips for my mom’s release The bracelet had an inscription on it that referred toset To find the tomb, we had to find the other bracelet

And so it had been two agonizing weeks of holing up in a tiny apart museums online and around Paris for the bracelet’s twin

Teeks ofif it was the Order calling to say they’d killedas ere actively searching, they wouldn’t do that—ould they want to lose their leverage? But Jack orried that they ht do it on a whiood for them—then no one would find Alexander’s tomb

They were already working onsure the Circle would never be able to find it At first the attacks had seemed random: A Saudi Circle member Liam Blackstone, an American actor An attack on the Dauphin family, which killed one of the twins Madairl would have been the first girl in the Circle with purple eyesbesides ht be the One, so they couldn’t marry me and fulfill the mandate, which was meant to reveal the way to the tomb